Secret Service agent’s laptop stolen from her car in NYC

Secret Service agent’s laptop stolen from her car in NYC

NEW YORK

A U.S. Secret Service agent has had a laptop stolen from her car in New York City.

The Secret Service said Friday that the laptop contains “multiple layers of security,” including disk encryption and doesn’t carry classified information. The agency wouldn’t comment further.

Police say the agent’s car was parked near her Brooklyn home when someone broke in Thursday. Other items that were stolen were later recovered, including coins and a bag with the agency’s insignia.

The agency is asking anyone with information on the theft to contact the police or the Secret Service’s New York field office.

Social worker accused of hiding sect abuse resigns

CHARLOTTE, N.C.

A veteran social worker accused of coaching congregants and their children on what to say during a 2015 child-abuse investigation of her religious sect has resigned, an attorney for a child welfare agency said Friday.

Andrea Leslie-Fite said Lori Cornelius left her position at the Cleveland County Department of Social Services. The development came less than two weeks after The Associated Press published a report that quoted former members of the Word of Faith Fellowship sect saying that Cornelius and two assistant district attorneys – all members of the church – had helped undermine abuse investigations. The prosecutors resigned their posts and are under investigation by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.

SBI spokesman Patty McQuillan said Friday the agency isn’t currently investigating Cornelius or the Rutherford County Division of Social Services. But she said that could change.

Death toll in Peru climbs to 67 from El Nino rains, floods

LIMA, Peru

The number of people killed in Peru following intense rains and mudslides wreaking havoc around the Andean nation climbed to 67 Friday, with thousands more displaced from destroyed homes and others waiting on rooftops for rescue.

Across the country overflowing rivers caused by El Nino rains damaged 115,000 homes, collapsed 117 bridges and paralyzed countless roadways.

The highly unusual rains follow a series of storms that have struck especially hard along Peru’s northern coast, with voracious waters inundating hospitals and cemeteries and leaving some villages entirely isolated.

US denies striking Syria mosque amid high death toll

BEIRUT

The United States struck an al-Qaida gathering in northern Syria killing several “terrorists,” and is investigating the number of civilians killed, a U.S. official said Friday amid reports that some 40 people, mostly civilians, were killed in a mosque in the area.

Friday prayers were cancelled across rebel-held parts of northern Syria after an airstrike that opposition activists and paramedics said struck the crowded Omar Ibn al-Khattab Mosque in the Jeeneh district in Aleppo province, killing and wounding dozens of people, some of whom were left trapped under the rubble.

U.S. Army Maj. Josh Jacques, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, said the U.S. did not target or strike a mosque.

Associated Press